


A Good Story

by Emjen_Enla



Series: Prompted Works [29]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Caretaker Tommy Shelby, Child Ada Shelby, Did you realize there was that big an age difference between Tommy and John?, Gen, Idealistic Tommy Shelby, Implied/Referenced Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Pre-Series, Survival, Teenaged Tommy Shelby, Theft, Tommy's mostly subconscious resentment of Arthur, Winter 1908, because i didn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: Pre-Series. Tommy, Ada and petty theft.
Relationships: Ada Shelby & Tommy Shelby
Series: Prompted Works [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1366669
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62
Collections: Peaky Blinders Exchange Round Two: Season 5 Edition





	A Good Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cheeky_blinders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheeky_blinders/gifts), [Veneredirimmel (Smilla)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/gifts), [Birdywhistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdywhistle/gifts), [MintJam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintJam/gifts), [deadendtracks (amonitrate)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/gifts), [weeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeo/gifts), [HazelNMae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelNMae/gifts).



> So many people requested Tommy & Ada fics, that I decided to write something. I was originally going to do something really angsty and set in s5, but then this ended up happening instead. Hopefully you enjoy?
> 
> Since ages are so crazy in this show, I’m just using the birth years that are on the Peaky Blinders wiki (Tommy in 1890 and Ada in 1897). That means Tommy is eighteen in this fic and Ada is eleven. Also by this timeline Arthur is twenty-one and John is thirteen. Polly is six years older than Tommy because she turns forty-five in s5 and by the above Tommy birth year he’s thirty-nine in s5. The timeline of events is a conglomeration of the headcanons of every pre-series fic I’ve ever read with my own thrown in for good measure.
> 
> Just for clarity “Arthur Sr.” is Tommy’s father. Arthur Jr. (our Arthur) is just called Arthur.
> 
> Yes, I know the title sucks.

Three bottles of milk sat on the table of the posh house’s kitchen. The cook liked to keep the door open while she worked when it was nice out, so they were plainly visible as if daring someone to take them.

Tommy Shelby leaned against a fence across the street, smoking and pushing his luck about how long he could loiter here without drawing attention to himself. He didn’t think this would necessarily be hard; it was just a matter of distracting the cook. The question was, what distraction.

His grandad would have a fit if he realized what Tommy was about to do. The Peaky Blinders had been Grandad’s pride and joy, and he’d always maintained the gang would never resort to petty theft, which was exactly what Tommy was currently planning. Still, Tommy figured if it was between the family’s reputation and Finn’s life, it wasn’t much contest. 

Things never ended well when Arthur Shelby Sr. came back to town, but he normally didn’t return only days after Polly’s children had been stolen by the police with a baby in hand and a massive debt to some London gang which would burn them all alive if they didn’t pay up. With Polly too consumed by grief to advise, Tommy had paid the amount out of the Peaky Blinders’ coffers, which he was beginning to suspect hadn’t been the best way to handle the situation, but at least they were all still alive. Then Arthur Sr. had left town with the rest of the money from the safe--a new safe which his father didn’t know the combination to was now at the top of Tommy’s wish-list--and they were flat broke in the dead of winter with no races for months.

Amongst other things, that meant that they couldn’t afford milk, which wouldn’t have been a problem except that Arthur Sr. had left the baby with them. Tommy estimated little Finn Shelby was about two months old, far too small for solid food. Arthur Sr. had given no indication of what had happened to Finn’s mother and Tommy had honestly been afraid to ask. Cow’s milk was a poor substitute food, but at least it was better than nothing. The only problem was that they barely had money for bread, let alone anything else.

Hence, the petty theft.

“What are you doing here?” Tommy jumped and turned to see Ada standing next to his shoulder; he hadn’t heard her come up.

“What are _you_ doing here?” He replied. “You’re supposed to be in school.”

Ada shrugged. She was dressed in her school dress with an old coat that had once been Tommy’s over the top and carried her books. “I got worried and wanted to go home to check on Pol and Finn,” she said. “Then I saw you heading this way on a mission. What are you doing?”

“I’m going to solve our ‘no food for Finn’ problem,” he said, a little surprised he even told her. Ada had a tendency to get excited and want to be part of everything.

She did not get excited today. “Oh,” She nodded seriously. “What can I do to help?”

Tommy hesitated. He should send her back home to keep an eye on things. Polly hadn’t gotten out of bed in two days and wouldn’t respond when he tried to talk to her so he’d had to leave Finn in Arthur’s care. Arthur meant well, but he was a bit irresponsible and Tommy wasn’t sure he trusted him with their baby brother. Ada might have been a decade younger than Arthur, but Tommy knew she wouldn’t accidentally let someone die on her watch.

What he was thinking must have shown on his face, because Ada frowned. “You’re going to send me home, aren’t you?” she asked. “Why? I can be a lot of help. You could use a distraction.”

“Ada-” He said.

“What? It’s true,” Ada said. “I can go up to the door and cry about being lost and you can sneak in and grab the milk while the cook is distracted.”

It wasn’t necessarily a bad plan, but Tommy didn’t think the cook would fall for it. Ada had the look of a kid from Small Heath; no servant at a posh house like this would believe a kid from Small Heath had just wandered into a neighborhood like this and gotten lost.

“You still have your school books,” he said, trying to come up with a decent excuse.

Ada just tossed her head and shoved the books into his arms. He almost dropped them, but almost twenty years of a life where books were so precious they were practically nonexistent stopped him. He bundled them carefully into his arms.

“Now I don’t have my school books,” Ada said with a wicked grin.

Tommy sighed, “Ada-” he started than paused as an idea came to him. Just the inspiration he’d been looking for. “How fast can you run?”

Ada’s smile got even larger, she knew she had him. “Like the wind.”

~~~~

Tommy walked casually up the path to the open back door, still holding Ada’s school books. He was vaguely aware of Ada creeping up the path behind him, keeping to the dead, scraggly bushes. This plan was insane. He was probably going to get both himself and his kid sister arrested, and if he somehow managed to survive the Birmingham justice system Polly would kill him when she was feeling better.

Still, he couldn’t do nothing. Finn would die if Tommy did nothing, and he would not stand for that. Finn was his brother, regardless of the fact that he was technically a bastard, and Tommy took care of his siblings. He had for years.

Tommy had been ten when his mother killed herself. Polly had been sixteen and had been wrapped up in running the Peaky Blinders--no small feat for anyone let alone a young, unmarried woman trying to keep her older brother convinced he was running the show--and keeping Arthur Sr. from getting into too much trouble--again, no small feat even when his ego was properly stroked. While Polly had been the one to keep a roof over their heads and the police off their backs, Tommy had ended up being responsible for making sure his siblings ate regularly, went to school and were generally as happy and healthy as possible. At first, he’d resented Arthur for not taking on this role as that he was the oldest, but eventually he’d realized that this was just how Arthur was. Arthur had a good heart but he was lost without someone to tell him what to do. The burden of being proactive about the lives and well beings of the Shelby siblings was never going to fall anywhere but on Tommy’s shoulders.

Still right now it would be nice if Tommy could trust Arthur to take care of Finn and Pol...

When he reached the door to the kitchen, he put on an air of harmlessness and knocked on the door frame. “Hello?”

“Yes?” the cook came out, wiping her hands on her apron. “What is it?”

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” Tommy said as politely as possible, it was important this woman had no reason to suspect him. “But I found these books lying in the street and I wondered if you knew who they belong to.” He held out Ada’s books so the cook could see and shifted his body so the woman had to step out of the door and turn a little to keep him in view. This opened an avenue into the kitchen for Ada and kept the cook from seeing what was happening out of the corner of her eye.

“Books?” The cook asked. She didn’t notice Tommy gesture subtly and she definitely didn’t notice Ada dart behind her and into the kitchen on silent feet. “Why do you think I would know who these belong to?”

“They’re school books,” Tommy said, showing her the cover of the first one. “I thought that perhaps there was a child in his house who might have gotten distracted and forgotten them.”

Ada had crossed the kitchen on silent feet and was scooping up the milk bottles. Just a few more seconds and she’d been out.

“They don’t belong to any children in this house,” the cook said, perhaps a little insulted. That was just fine so long as she didn’t turn around. “The Master’s children have _new_ books and the servants don’t have any schooling.”

Tommy fought to keep his face neutral. He’d dropped out of school early to help Polly with the betting business when Arthur Sr. had finally run off for good, but that didn’t mean he thought the fact that the working children of this house didn’t have any school something to be proud of. Thankfully, Ada flashed by on her way out of the kitchen; he could make an exit now.

“Oh, I’m sorry to bother you then,” he said. “Do you know of any other places I could go to ask about the books?”

The cook heaved a sigh. “You could try the Taylors down the street, I suppose. Always a flock of children coming and going there.”

“I will,” Tommy said. “Thank you so much for your help. I won’t keep you from your work any longer.”

Then cook muttered her goodbyes and Tommy strode briskly away. He walked until he heard the cook start shouting when she noticed the milk was gone, then he burst into a spring and didn’t stop running until he was safely back in Small Heath.

Ada was waiting for him right where he’d told her too. Her hair was windblown and her face was red with exertion and excitement. She was practically vibrating and grinning from ear-to-ear. Tommy hadn’t seen her so happy since Michael and Anna had been stolen. She was clutching the three milk bottles to her chest like they were liquid gold.

“That was awesome!” she cried practically dancing in circles around him. “She didn’t even suspect a thing!”

“You did a good job,” Tommy congratulated her.

“You couldn’t have done it without me!” Ada crowed.

Privately, Tommy was sure he really would have been able to figure out how to do it by himself, but he didn’t want to burst Ada’s bubble of happiness when there was so little of that going around these days. He simply took two of the bottles from her and they started to head home.

“Tommy,” Ada said after a while.

“Yes?” Tommy asked, jerked out of thoughts about all the things that needed to be done to keep the family afloat until race season came again.

“Why did we go to steal from that posh house?” Ada asked. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to steal from someone else? Margie Davis always leaves her milk on her windowsill. That would have been easy; all you’d have to do is walk by.”

Tommy wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done that, beyond that it had felt horribly wrong to steal from another family in Small Heath, who were probably doing as badly as they were. The owners of this posh house had probably didn’t have any real problems, so it felt a little like justice to given them even this small one, even if there had been more personal risk.

“Does it matter?” he asked Ada. “This is a better story, isn’t it?”

She smiled wide. “Yes, wait until I tell John. He’ll be so jealous.”


End file.
